How can pro-lifers justify support of war and the death penalty?

[Mare Tranquillity]

So, Pale, you don't like the common usage definition because it doesn't support your position. I can understand that.

A similar situation is currently taking place with a revision to the 10 Commandments. "Thou shalt not kill" is being replaced with "Thou shalt not murder". This is so that the term murder can used as a caveat, defining it in certain ways allows one to weasel past the original blanket statement.

You have spun a semantic confection to mask your position. You wish to be able to dictate to others what they can do with their bodies and things INSIDE their bodies. More specifically, as a man, you wish to force women to adhere to your view of how they should conduct their lives. I disagree with you no matter how you phrase your objections. There is no sanctity of life in our culture, we kill billions of animals, millions of people, destroy eco-systems, and allow tens of thousands of children to starve to death each day with no qualms (I note that you are not campaigning for the already living children) so I do not intend to support your demand that women obey your idea of how THEY should deal with their pregnancies and force them to bring unwanted babies into a world that doesn't want them.

If your house was full of adopted babies and you were personally trying to save as many as you could through your own actions instead of demanding actions from others, then I would not think you were such a hypocrite.

 

[palerider]

So, Pale, you don't like the common usage definition because it doesn't support your position. I can understand that.

Broad definitons don't fly in a court of law and if you knew anything about actual debate, you would know that they don't fly there either. If you can't make your point without painting with a very broad brush, then you have no point.

A similar situation is currently taking place with a revision to the 10 Commandments. "Thou shalt not kill" is being replaced with "Thou shalt not murder". This is so that the term murder can used as a caveat, defining it in certain ways allows one to weasel past the original blanket statement.

Learn just a bit of hebrew. Do just a bit of research into the Torah. you will find that kill, as it was used then actally meant murder. The Torah says that we must not murder, but there are times when we must kill.

You have spun a semantic confection to mask your position. You wish to be able to dictate to others what they can do with their bodies and things INSIDE their bodies. More specifically, as a man, you wish to force women to adhere to your view of how they should conduct their lives.

More crap from mare. I want women to respect the right to live that each and every human being is guaranteed by the 14th amendment. You believe yourself to be superior to the unborn and therefore do not respect their right to live.

I disagree with you no matter how you phrase your objections. There is no sanctity of life in our culture, we kill billions of animals, millions of people, destroy eco-systems, and allow tens of thousands of children to starve to death each day with no qualms (I note that you are not campaigning for the already living children) so I do not intend to support your demand that women obey your idea of how THEY should deal with their pregnancies and force them to bring unwanted babies into a world that doesn't want them.

My argument is not based on the sanctity of life. My argument is based on hard science, the law, and the constitution of the US. I am sure that you wish that my argument were based on something as ethereal as the sanctity of life. Then my argument, like yours, would be based on nothing more than uneducated, unsupported, uncorroborated opinion.

If your house was full of adopted babies and you were personally trying to save as many as you could through your own actions instead of demanding actions from others, then I would not think you were such a hypocrite.

Logial fallacy mare. Red herriing that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that unborns are living human beings who have the same right to live as you.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Broad definitons don't fly in a court of law and if you knew anything about actual debate, you would know that they don't fly there either. If you can't make your point without painting with a very broad brush, then you have no point.

You don't like the broad brush approach even to a broad subject such as half of humanities right to be secure in their own person. Before you get to deeply into court let's remember that courts repeatedly held up the slavery of black people and the subjugation of women as being legally correct.

Learn just a bit of hebrew. Do just a bit of research into the Torah. you will find that kill, as it was used then actally meant murder. The Torah says that we must not murder, but there are times when we must kill.

Neither Hebrew nor Greek are the issue, it's changing the basis on which our culture has claimed to be based for centuries. Wouldn't matter to you because you wish to go back to the time when women were chattel (and therein lies our disagreement, it's not about abortion).

More crap from mare. I want women to respect the right to live that each and every human being is guaranteed by the 14th amendment. You believe yourself to be superior to the unborn and therefore do not respect their right to live.

More legalese to support taking the right to personal determination away from others because YOU don't like what they do.

My argument is not based on the sanctity of life. My argument is based on hard science, the law, and the constitution of the US. I am sure that you wish that my argument were based on something as ethereal as the sanctity of life. Then my argument, like yours, would be based on nothing more than uneducated, unsupported, uncorroborated opinion.

Sometimes rights compete and one must decide which right has precedence. Enslaving women to the rights of the unborn is your preferred choice, you of course not being a woman. Women feel differently, all down through the history of patriarchal societies this battle has been waged. We have finally gotten the playing field levelled somewhat and here you are demanding that we all march back into the Dark Ages.

Logial fallacy mare. Red herriing that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that unborns are living human beings who have the same right to live as you.

No matter what color you call the fish, the fact remains that you want other people to take the weight and pay the freight to solve a problem in a way that will cost Pale nothing at all. That kind of attitude makes me suspect the honesty of your intentions. This is really easy for you since other people do all the work.

 

[Chip]

Pro-lifers can rationally justify support of war on the legitimate basis of self-defense but only on that basis. The Iraq war cannot be so justified as the very lives of Americans were not at stake by Saddam's plans to divert our share of Iraqi crude to China (the reason we invaded).

Pro-lifers cannot rationally justify the death penalty, as we are adequately self-defended by keeping a known murderer locked-up as well as isolated if need be. "Revenge is mine, saith the Lord" means that God will deal with the murder in God's own way and time, and it is not within our authority to take that person's God-given right to life or to superegocentrically presume we know how God will handle the specific matter.

Keep in mind, that anti-aboritionists are not necessarily pro-lifers.

 

[palerider]

Pro-lifers can rationally justify support of war on the legitimate basis of self-defense but only on that basis. The Iraq war cannot be so justified as the very lives of Americans were not at stake by Saddam's plans to divert our share of Iraqi crude to China (the reason we invaded).

Pro-lifers cannot rationally justify the death penalty, as we are adequately self-defended by keeping a known murderer locked-up as well as isolated if need be. "Revenge is mine, saith the Lord" means that God will deal with the murder in God's own way and time, and it is not within our authority to take that person's God-given right to life or to superegocentrically presume we know how God will handle the specific matter.

Keep in mind, that anti-aboritionists are not necessarily pro-lifers.

I have never claimed to be pro life. I am anti abortion on demand. Of course, the death penalty is for the self defense of us all. You would have a point if there had been no escapes in which murderers got the chance to kill again, or killed guards in prison, or killed other inmates.

None the less, war and capital punishment are red herrings in this discussion as they have no bearing on the facts as they apply to abortion.

 

[palerider]

You don't like the broad brush approach even to a broad subject such as half of humanities right to be secure in their own person. Before you get to deeply into court let's remember that courts repeatedly held up the slavery of black people and the subjugation of women as being legally correct.

It is not a broad subject. It can be described in one sentence. Women are killing their children without legal consequence for any reason they choose. What is broad, is your attempt to justify it.

Who is arguing that the courts were right when they decided roe except you? They made a decision based on an incorrect assumption. They stated that they were unsure as to whether unborns were human beings and made the decision anyway and in doing so, violated both their ethical and judiicial responsibilities to never make a decision when in doubt if great harm could result. The court has reversed itself some 200 times since its inception. The roe decision was just one more bad decision that they will eventually have to reverse. The evidence that living human beings are being kiled without judicial review is simply too great and the body of evidence and legal precedent are growing all the time.

Neither Hebrew nor Greek are the issue, it's changing the basis on which our culture has claimed to be based for centuries. Wouldn't matter to you because you wish to go back to the time when women were chattel (and therein lies our disagreement, it's not about abortion).

What's the matter mare, do you find that you can't make an argument unless you unilatarally redefine words to mean what you want? Thou shall not kill is copied from the torah and as such, has the same meaning as it has in the tora. That is, thou shall not murder.

More legalese to support taking the right to personal determination away from others because YOU don't like what they do.

Actually it is in support of protecting the right to live which, in the hierarchy of rights is more fundamental than the right to liberty if the abortion debate were even about personal liberty. None of us has the right to kill another human being for personal reasons. One person's liberty only extends to the point where it infringes on the more fundamental right of another.

Sometimes rights compete and one must decide which right has precedence. Enslaving women to the rights of the unborn is your preferred choice, you of course not being a woman. Women feel differently, all down through the history of patriarchal societies this battle has been waged. We have finally gotten the playing field levelled somewhat and here you are demanding that we all march back into the Dark Ages.

In all legal arguments, there is a clash of rights and whenever such a clash exists, the rights of one must give way to the more fundamental right of the other. In this case, the right to live is the more fundamental right. In fact, it is the most fundmamental right.

You probably don't know it, because you seem to actually know so little, but when items are placed in a list, in a legal document, their order establishes their relative importance. The government of the US was instituted to protect the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (property). The order in which they are written establishes their order of importance and their order is logically sound. Of what value is the right to be free, if one's right to live is not first secured? And of what value is a right to property if one's right to live and right to be free are not first secured.

And it is very sad indeed when you claim that a level playing field equals you being able to kill your children without legal consequence.

No matter what color you call the fish, the fact remains that you want other people to take the weight and pay the freight to solve a problem in a way that will cost Pale nothing at all. That kind of attitude makes me suspect the honesty of your intentions. This is really easy for you since other people do all the work.

A fallacious argument is a fallacious argument mare, no matter how many ways you try to reword it. If your argument is a fallacy, it is as if your lips are moving but nothing is coming out. The fact that you must engage in fallacy to make your argument exposes the inherent weakness of that argument.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Dear Pale,
All your arguments are ones I don't personally disagree with, but we are talking about two different rights and see the issue from two somewhat different perspectives.

I agree that abortions kill the fetus--or the "baby", a term many like to use because of its emotional impact--and I think it's wrong. But unlike you I do not feel that I am in a position to demand that others fix the problem by living their lives according to my standards. Unlike you, I also know that draconian laws will not stop abortions, but will kill many more women and orphan their children, as the dictator in Romania proved. The kind of laws you advocate will hit the poorest women the hardest because rich people will always find a way to get what they want.

Your approach to this problem will give men a free pass (even in cases of rape) and put all the onus on women. This is fairly traditional male attitude to which I object. Despite my own repugnance at the "killing of babies" I will still protect the life of a woman at the expense of a handful of cells that may develop into another baby that no one (you included) wants to raise and care for.

Your posts reek of punishment for women, your tone is Old Testament Biblical, harsh, and absolute, compassionless for what women struggle with in the real world. I think it's hypocritical to viciously attack women under the guise of trying to protect unborn children while doing nothing for the tens of thousands of already-born children dying for lack of common necessities. Your selective indignation is also common, if you blame women and attack them, then you can assuage your conscience and avoid the natural guilt that comes from the fact that you know you aren't doing everything you can to save the already living babies and children who are dying every day. Much better, much easier to post on sites like this arguing for the punishment and control of women than it is to give of your "substance, not just your increase" to save children.

What we need to do is find better birth control and make birth control universally accessible. It would also be useful to divert some of the vast sums that go for war and use it to care for the humans that are already alive and struggling to remain so.

I would be interested to find out the source of your vitriol around this subject, having met others like you I could speculate, but I won't out of respect for the pain I think you feel.

 

[palerider]

Dear Pale,
All your arguments are ones I don't personally disagree with, but we are talking about two different rights and see the issue from two somewhat different perspectives.

Of course we do. You are wrapped up emotionally in the issue and as a result, aren't thinking rationally. You make arguments in favor of abortion that you would reject out of hand onany other topic. On the abortion topic, you leave rationality behind and operate on faith.

I agree that abortions kill the fetus--or the "baby", a term many like to use because of its emotional impact--and I think it's wrong. But unlike you I do not feel that I am in a position to demand that others fix the problem by living their lives according to my standards.

Do you believe that you are in a position to "fix" the problem of violent husbands who beat their wives and make them feel inferior so as to keep them under their thumbs indefinately? Do you favor helping abused women out of their abusive situations and live thier lives free of abuse according to your standards? Of course you do. In fact, you feel that you are in a position to demand all sorts of fixes to situations that you, and most people find disturbing and the fixes are all based on your standards.

Unlike you, I also know that draconian laws will not stop abortions, but will kill many more women and orphan their children, as the dictator in Romania proved. The kind of laws you advocate will hit the poorest women the hardest because rich people will always find a way to get what they want.

Actually, you know no such thing. Again, that is an appeal to emotion on your part. In the years prior to roe, very few women died as a result of illegal abortions. The thousands upon thousands that the pro choice movement claimed has been admitted to have been a lie. Both planned parenthood and the CDC put the number at around 10 per year prior to roe. Untll you get back to the point in time before the use of antibiotics became common and then many died, but then many died from having teeth pulled or lacerations sewn up.

Your approach to this problem will give men a free pass (even in cases of rape) and put all the onus on women. This is fairly traditional male attitude to which I object. Despite my own repugnance at the "killing of babies" I will still protect the life of a woman at the expense of a handful of cells that may develop into another baby that no one (you included) wants to raise and care for.

Your posts reek of punishment for women, your tone is Old Testament Biblical, harsh, and absolute, compassionless for what women struggle with in the real world.

If my posts reek of anything it is of the outrage of allowing a woman to kill her child simply because she wants to. You talk of the women in the real world and conveniently ignore the 45 million that have died at the hands of those "poor" women

I think it's hypocritical to viciously attack women under the guise of trying to protect unborn children while doing nothing for the tens of thousands of already-born children dying for lack of common necessities.

First, you have no idea what I do or don't do for needy children. Second, not allowing women to kill their children is no more an attack on them than not allowing husbands to beat their wives is an attack on them. It is women who are attacking their children in their millions and killing them.

Your selective indignation is also common, if you blame women and attack them, then you can assuage your conscience and avoid the natural guilt that comes from the fact that you know you aren't doing everything you can to save the already living babies and children who are dying every day. Much better, much easier to post on sites like this arguing for the punishment and control of women than it is to give of your "substance, not just your increase" to save children.

More and more emotiional spew that means nothing, and has absolutely no bearing on the facts of abortion.

What we need to do is find better birth control and make birth control universally accessible. It would also be useful to divert some of the vast sums that go for war and use it to care for the humans that are already alive and struggling to remain so.

As I have said, a ban on abortion on demand will create a profit motive for a better contraceptive. And birth control is universally available, and women simply don't take advantage of it. Teenage girls on the poorest reservations have access to birth control and simply don't take advantage of it. Nearlhy a million abortions per year are the result of women not using birth control or not using it effectively. Now you tell me where it is in this country that a woman does not have free access to birth control if she wants it.

I would be interested to find out the source of your vitriol around this subject, having met others like you I could speculate, but I won't out of respect for the pain I think you feel.

Again, you are caught up in emotion and are imagining vitriol. You can find no instances of an attack on women by me, or hatred of women by me, or vitreol spewed out on women by me. I simply don't believe that a theoretical right of women to privacy (which applies only to women) outweighs any human being's right to live and your absolute inability to form a rational argument in support of that killing stands as testmament to the wrongness of it. When your arguments fail, you turn to attacks on me and projecting your own emotions onto me.

Talk to Chip. It is my understanding that he is a councilor. As him if he sees any evidence of hatred, or vitreol against women on my part. I would imagine that he would give you an honest answer.


Of course, we both know that you won't, because if you couldn't make a monster out of me, then you might find yourself wondering what sort of monster kills a child because it is inconvenient and that wouldn't do at all, would it?

 

[top gun]

It's just completely over for you Palerider. Your whole ultra conservative mindset was yet again proven majorly out of touch with the vast majority of the country.

Just like I said over 2 years ago you were only fooling yourself... or as I actually said you were just pissing in the wind.

We have a wonderful Democratic President now and for the next eight years we'll be appointing reasonable Supreme Court Justices that will safeguard Roe and women's rights.

So now Roe will have an even longer precident... 44 years!

Women won. You lost. You just have to accept the fallacy of your argument and your total and utter defeat. I know it won't be easy... you were very invested.

 

[BigRob]

It's just completely over for you Palerider. Your whole ultra conservative mindset was yet again proven majorly out of touch with the vast majority of the country.

Just like I said over 2 years ago you were only fooling yourself... or as I actually said you were just pissing in the wind.

We have a wonderful Democratic President now and for the next eight years we'll be appointing reasonable Supreme Court Justices that will safeguard Roe and women's rights.

So now Roe will have an even longer precident... 44 years!

Women won. You lost. You just have to accept the fallacy of your argument and your total and utter defeat. I know it won't be easy... you were very invested.

The only "loser" here is the baby who will be denied the "right to life" for that many more years.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Of course we do. You are wrapped up emotionally in the issue and as a result, aren't thinking rationally. You make arguments in favor of abortion that you would reject out of hand onany other topic. On the abortion topic, you leave rationality behind and operate on faith.

I'm not sure what faith it is that I'm operating on, it's certainly not my faith in my ability to dictate to all the women on Earth what they must do with their bodies--that's you.

Do you believe that you are in a position to "fix" the problem of violent husbands who beat their wives and make them feel inferior so as to keep them under their thumbs indefinately? Do you favor helping abused women out of their abusive situations and live thier lives free of abuse according to your standards? Of course you do. In fact, you feel that you are in a position to demand all sorts of fixes to situations that you, and most people find disturbing and the fixes are all based on your standards.

Nice non sequitur, Pale. I'm not sure what "standards" you're referring to, I kind of like the one about being secure in one's person--a right that you wish to take away from half of the world's population. It's not an emotional issue with you though, is it? You spend a lot of time here writing about something you don't care about.

Actually, you know no such thing. Again, that is an appeal to emotion on your part. In the years prior to roe, very few women died as a result of illegal abortions. The thousands upon thousands that the pro choice movement claimed has been admitted to have been a lie. Both planned parenthood and the CDC put the number at around 10 per year prior to roe. Untll you get back to the point in time before the use of antibiotics became common and then many died, but then many died from having teeth pulled or lacerations sewn up.

If you say so I'm sure it's correct, but it's irrelevant to the discussion of women's freedom from YOUR domination.

Your approach to this problem will give men a free pass (even in cases of rape) and put all the onus on women. This is fairly traditional male attitude to which I object. Despite my own repugnance at the "killing of babies" I will still protect the life of a woman at the expense of a handful of cells that may develop into another baby that no one (you included) wants to raise and care for.

What, you couldn't come up with a suitable comment so you just left this paragraph in for accuracy?

If my posts reek of anything it is of the outrage of allowing a woman to kill her child simply because she wants to. You talk of the women in the real world and conveniently ignore the 45 million that have died at the hands of those "poor" women.

Would you say that "outrage" is an emotional response?

First, you have no idea what I do or don't do for needy children.

All I know is what you write, and in all your writings you have never once mentioned rescuing a child nor have you ever advocated rescuing a child nor giving money to rescue children nor advocated available birth control nor sex education nor... anything but hacking on women, forcing women--even in cases of rape--to bear children that NOBODY WANTS.

Second, not allowing women to kill their children is no more an attack on them than not allowing husbands to beat their wives is an attack on them. It is women who are attacking their children in their millions and killing them.

When a man kills a woman who is inside his body living off of his blood, then he'll have the same right to be secure in his person as I believe women should have. You keep trying to come up with analogous situations but there aren't any. The fetus is a parasite till it becomes viable and whether you or I like it women should have the right to choose whether to give that fetus life. You don't believe in God do you?

More and more emotiional spew that means nothing, and has absolutely no bearing on the facts of abortion.

It does have bearing, 45,000,000 unwanted babies to be born by unwilling women into a world that neither needs nor wants them. Thousands of children die every day, why make women bear millions more to die of neglect? How cruel are you? A fetus a few weeks old is aborted and dies quickly, a malnourished child living in neglect can linger for years, diseased, rickets, rotting teeth, intestinal worms, sores and no one cares. And all you can do is DEMAND, DEMAND, DEMAND that women have those babies. Do you care at all what happens to the babies after birth? Or are you like Ronald Reagan who believed that life began at conception and ended at birth.

As I have said, a ban on abortion on demand will create a profit motive for a better contraceptive. And birth control is universally available, and women simply don't take advantage of it. Teenage girls on the poorest reservations have access to birth control and simply don't take advantage of it. Nearlhy a million abortions per year are the result of women not using birth control or not using it effectively. Now you tell me where it is in this country that a woman does not have free access to birth control if she wants it.

All the religious families, all the small town girls where it's not available, my high school had no sex, no school nurse, and no contraception available. Republican administrations have cut birth control education and contraceptive devices from our suppor to other countries at the behest of the Christian Right Wing and instead invested that money in "abstinence" programs that don't work.

Again, you are caught up in emotion and are imagining vitriol. You can find no instances of an attack on women by me, or hatred of women by me, or vitreol spewed out on women by me. I simply don't believe that a theoretical right of women to privacy (which applies only to women) outweighs any human being's right to live and your absolute inability to form a rational argument in support of that killing stands as testmament to the wrongness of it. When your arguments fail, you turn to attacks on me and projecting your own emotions onto me.

A whole paragraph made entirely of phlogiston.

Talk to Chip. It is my understanding that he is a councilor. As him if he sees any evidence of hatred, or vitreol against women on my part. I would imagine that he would give you an honest answer.

If Chip is a counselor he will have ethical standards, if he has counseled you he would be forbidden to publish information about you on a site such as this. If he has not counseled you, then I suspect that his ethical standards would prevent him from expressing an opinion about you mental state.

Of course, we both know that you won't, because if you couldn't make a monster out of me, then you might find yourself wondering what sort of monster kills a child because it is inconvenient and that wouldn't do at all, would it?

You're not a monster, you're an angry man who has no one to take that anger out on. You've probably been hurt somewhere in this process and you are expressing that pain as anger towards women who don't love their babies as much as you would love yours.

 

[Chip]

I have never claimed to be pro life. I am anti abortion on demand.

Yes, that jibes with your posts.

This thread, however, is about pro-lifers and the original poster's premise that they can't really be pro-life if they support war and the death penalty.

Of course, the death penalty is for the self defense of us all. You would have a point if there had been no escapes in which murderers got the chance to kill again, or killed guards in prison, or killed other inmates.

Again, since you are anti-abortion and not pro-life, your defense of the death penalty is mostly to be expected.

However, even then, raising sub-standard incarceration practices, sub-standard incarceration practices that were likely compelled on the prisons by liberal activist judges, is the obvious solution response to your pro-death penalty arguments here.

But, then again, I'm pro-life.

Mistakes made by liberal activist judges do not excuse the murder of prisoners.

None the less, war and capital punishment are red herrings in this discussion as they have no bearing on the facts as they apply to abortion.

Actually, because pro-life means so much more than anti-abortion, the red herring presentation is that which focuses so greatly on abortion.

Thus the topical title including war and the death penalty is most certainly germane to this thread.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

The only "loser" here is the baby who will be denied the "right to life" for that many more years.

Who's the bigger loser, the baby aborted at 7 weeks or the child who dies of malnutrition at 7 years? Where would you put 45,000,000 unwanted babies? Do you really think King Georgie would take money from his war to care for those babies? Would you? Pale won't.

 

[Chip]

Interesting ...

Ontology, epistemology, utility: which do you favor?

Those who are more ontologically oriented may likely stand by the newly conceived human being's right to life.

Those who are more utilitarianly oriented may likely stand by that which has worked for them and those they know or align with, no matter who or what may have been harmed in the past.

Those who are more epistemologically oriented may find themselves in the middle, struggling to make rational judments with likely too little of the empathy of ontology or the experience of utility.

Too bad there isn't a thread on the DNA and life science substantiation that a unique individual human being begins to live at conception, as that might provide the epistemologists the foundation for rational conclusion that they seek.

Utilitarians, however, can rarely be argumentatively swayed -- they must first experience conviction and then subsequent conversion to ontology before they change their mind.

I know this is somewhat off topic ... but everybody seems to be doing the off-topic dance, so I figured I'd waltz along with them ... .

 

[BigRob]

Who's the bigger loser, the baby aborted at 7 weeks or the child who dies of malnutrition at 7 years? Where would you put 45,000,000 unwanted babies? Do you really think King Georgie would take money from his war to care for those babies? Would you? Pale won't.

I think the unborn baby is the bigger loser. The child that is alive at least has a shot at life.

Further, you could take all the money spent in Iraq, and put it towards fighting poverty, and poverty would still be around in the same way it is now.